Child-Care Plan at Artists’ Village Draws Criticism

HIGHLAND PARK — A Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency plan to develop a vacant, city-owned lot on York Boulevard triggered a shouting match at a community meeting last week.

About 40 residents from Highland Park and Mt. Washington attended the meeting Thursday that was arranged by Councilman Richard Alatorre to present the agency’s proposals for an artists’ village and community child-care center on the 30,000-square-foot lot at North Avenue 53.

The bulk of the debate revolved around whether the child-care center on the property would serve only school-age children, as the agency proposed, or be open to infants and preschool-age children as well.

The CRA has agreed to fund construction of the $3-million complex, which was proposed by residents a year and a half ago, on the lot that was once the site of a commercial building and small houses.

The aim of the project, city officials at the meeting said, is to provide the Highland Park area with some much-needed child-care and cultural activity.

The meeting at the Highland Park Senior Citizen Center started off amicably with a CRA planner reviewing drafts of the center as he tried to put city zoning codes into layman’s terms. CRA Director of Housing John McCoy then said the artists’ village and child-care center, which could be completed in three years, would have 14 residential units for artists’ families. The two-story community and child-care center next to the residential units would serve 50 to 60 school-age children.

The heat was turned up, however, as soon as officials opened the meeting to questions. As several people in the audience raised their voices in anger over the plan, several others who took objection to the protest walked out.

One of the protesters was Jean-Marie Durand, owner of a Highland Park photo studio for 16 years and a member of the Mt. Washington preschool collective that pressed to have the preschool included in the project.

Durand said he was concerned that the needs of preschool-age children and Latino children in the area would be lost in the many stages of approval the project must go through to comply with city zoning codes.

“We have had the CRA’s point of view, but what about the community’s view?” Durand asked. “We want to form a school that is going to shape our children.”

Durand said he thought the development of the artists’ village and child-care center should be taken out of the city’s hands.

“I think we should go private,” Durand said. He said if the city is not willing to adhere to the wishes of residents, the relationship should be terminated.

McCoy appeared harried by the suggestion that his agency was not taking the community’s interests to heart in the early design of the center.

“Either there’s going to be a consensus or we’ll just let it go,” McCoy said.

However, “nothing is concrete,” said Diego Cardoso, a planning deputy for Alatorre’s office.

“This is not our proposal,” Cardoso told the audience. “It has been advanced by a lot of people in this room. . . . We are here to get your ideas and put them into some form.

“You,” Cardoso said referring to the audience, “are going to determine what is built here.”

Pat Griffith, another member of the Mt. Washington preschool group, said in an interview after the meeting that she was angered by the hostile manner in which some residents addressed the city’s representatives. She decided to send a letter of apology to the CRA and Alatorre’s office.

“We want the councilman and the CRA to know that we are willing to work with them,” Griffith said. “We too are concerned about the (center serving) preschool-age children. Our understanding is that this will be discussed further and it is open to modification.”

To further develop the plans, Alatorre said, four focus groups will meet Tuesday at Occidental College at 7 p.m. in Johnson Hall at the Alumni Auditorium. Visitor parking is available off of Campus Road, north of Westdale Avenue. Non-students may park along Alumni Drive, near the campus entrance. For more information about the focus groups, call Carlos Chavez at (213) 259-2990.